[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Surname spelling changes

[Stephen H Karlson]

A bit of topic drift, but spelling used to be somewhat more haphazard, and
if "invented spelling" catches on in the schools, but I digress ...

Returning to the main drift, I have turned up three different spellings
among the immigration records of my maternal grandmother's aunts and
uncles:  Wilhelm Kolbaszer from Raditsch, Alenora (mother of Wilhelm and
the others to be named) and Karl Kelbasa from Raslinowska, Charlotte
Kielbasa (and children, including the grandmother), from Walki.  These
people standardized on Kalbes in the States, although some records for the
aunts give Kalbus as birth names.

> This appears to be running all over the board regarding desired
> spelling of surnames by individuals bearing the name and in doing so
> losing the content of my original reply.
>
> Note, my original E-letter (Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Jesswein
> or Gesswein) stated:
> "I've encountered character substitution quite a few times in the
> encoding of German vocal sound into Russian vocal sound by the scribes
> of the time. The writers were attempting to communicate. . ."
>
> I am referring to transcription of German church records into Russian
> Cyrillic
> for the civil authorities ce. 1868....
> characters may vary but the writer succeeds in keeping the sound
> similar.
> I speak only from my experience gained gleaning documents from the
> microfilm rolls of the Mormons.
> Hence the U.S. uses the Soundex Sysytem, lumping together sound a-likes
> and leaving it up to the individual to sort out the ones that belong to
> them.
>
> I have many relatives that left Europe spelling their surname one way
> and Ellis Island spelling it another way.
> I wish Ellis would have got it right at least once.
> (This is not the time and place for empirical evidence to substantiate
> my statement)
> Most relatives continued spelling their surname as in Europe once
> safely at their destination.
> Many Americanized their surnames.
> But then again... this has little to do with transcription into Russian
> Cyrillic.

Stephen Karlson               skarlson at niu.edu                 *-- 154393

ATTITUDE is a nine letter word.  BOATSPEED.